Order of Man - BRIAN JOHNSON ｜ Theory, Practice, Mastery

00:00:00.000 We all know there's a formula for success in any venture. We've all heard things like success

00:00:05.340 leaves clues and seen certain people replicate success over and over and over again. And yet

00:00:12.100 so many men struggle to create and maintain success on the professional and personal front

00:00:18.180 of their lives. That's why it's so important that we learn what protocols are required to achieve

00:00:30.000 Johnson to talk about his theory of Arte and why success on any level is so simple, yet so elusive.

00:00:39.380 We talk about what confidence in others actually is and how to develop it, how talent won't get you

00:00:46.440 all the way to your goals, why intrinsic motivation must be your pursuit and the Stockdale paradox and

00:00:55.100 how to use it to your advantage. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest.

00:01:00.000 Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one

00:01:05.580 more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is

00:01:12.740 your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all

00:01:18.360 is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is

00:01:23.680 Ryan Michler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today

00:01:28.940 and welcome back. As I try to say every week, thank you for being here. It's very important to me that I

00:01:35.260 express gratitude because this podcast, this movement and where I am personally in my own life

00:01:41.460 would just not be the same without you guys tuning in, being an example, leading your own families and

00:01:48.120 businesses and communities. And I want to make sure I always express gratitude for that. Also, I would

00:01:54.660 humbly ask that you share this podcast with a friend or a family member that might find value

00:02:00.420 from what we do, which is to reclaim and restore masculinity. And then the last thing I want to do

00:02:05.020 before I get into my conversation with Brian is mention my friends and show sponsors over at

00:02:11.060 Montana knife company.com. Obviously they make knives. They have a hard time, quite honestly, not selling

00:02:19.040 knives, but promoting what they do because our technical or social media overlords, as we often

00:02:27.420 have heard, uh, don't like the idea of them sharing their knives and hunting stories, which is what so

00:02:34.960 many of us as men, uh, bond around. I, I had a friend over, uh, 10 minutes ago when we were talking

00:02:40.780 about hunting stories and sharing laughs and, and, and memories. And it all happens around hunting. And if

00:02:48.940 you're a hunter, you're always looking for a good knife. And I would look no further than Montana

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00:02:59.620 one of their 100% made America knives. Also make sure just check out the order of man store, brand

00:03:05.100 new beanies, brand new hats, brand new hoodies, brand new shirts. You can do that at store.orderofman.com

00:03:10.960 enough of the shameless plugs. Let me introduce you to one of my favorite guests. Quite honestly,

00:03:16.800 that's a question I get all the time. Who are your favorite guests? This guy is so good.

00:03:20.260 His name is Brian Johnson. He is the founder and CEO of heroic public benefit corporation.

00:03:27.460 He's also the author of Arate, which is a subtitled activate your heroic potential. He's 50% philosopher,

00:03:36.160 50% CEO. And as he says, he's 101% committed to helping create a world in which 51% of humanity

00:03:44.300 is flourishing by the year, 2051. We talk a little bit more about that because that's a pretty audacious

00:03:49.780 goal. Uh, as a founder and CEO, he's raised over $25 million. He's made crowdfunding history and he's

00:03:58.020 built to and sold, uh, social media platforms, uh, as a philosopher and teacher, he's helped millions of

00:04:05.620 people from around the world. He's trained over 10,000 heroic coaches from over 100 countries.

00:04:13.540 And he's created some very powerful protocols that science suggests changes lives.

00:04:21.580 Brian, what's up brother. So great to see you. Glad you could join me on the podcast. I know you're in

00:04:25.740 the car, but you know what, who cares? Sometimes we just need to make things happen. And, uh, that's

00:04:30.520 what we do as men. So I'm glad you're here. Let's go. We embrace reality. Do what needs to

00:04:36.180 get done. I appreciate you, man. Been really looking forward to our chat.

00:04:39.820 It's interesting. Cause you know, I, I want to put together a good show, a highly produced show,

00:04:45.240 a high quality show. I want the audio to look good and the video to look good and all of that's

00:04:49.720 important. But I think what resonates with at least just anecdotally listening to the guys that

00:04:54.900 tune into our podcast is real conversations, you know, guys having conversations about

00:05:01.040 what struggles they're dealing with. Uh, you know, I, I don't, I don't know why you're in the car.

00:05:06.020 Maybe you just had to pick up your daughter cause she's sick or something like that. You know,

00:05:09.540 it's like life happens. I'll tell you, dude, dentist, my wife asked me to go to this one

00:05:14.960 dentist. We're 90 minutes away. I've rescheduled twice. And these guys couldn't get me in for another

00:05:19.240 like three months. I'm like, all right, I gotta go. So there you go. That's how it goes. So, um,

00:05:25.260 guys, look, if you're looking at somebody and you think that, you know, Brian has it all figured out

00:05:30.960 or I have it all figured out. I don't want to speak for you, but I think I can be so bold to say,

00:05:36.040 no, we don't have it all figured out. Trust me. We do not have it all figured out.

00:05:40.460 I will, I will affirm that if my wife was here, she can tell you that that is in fact true. So

00:05:46.020 you got a new book coming out, man. It's called Arate. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm very interested in

00:05:55.540 the word itself. You know, I'm a, I'm a big fan of, uh, Ed Milad and Andy Frisilla. Both of them

00:06:00.680 are friends of mine and they've got their Arate syndicate. And I actually don't know much about

00:06:05.740 the word other than, uh, you know, maybe some level of excellence. I think it's, I think it's a

00:06:11.020 Greek word. Uh, so if you would, please give me, give me the definition of Arate and why you decided

00:06:17.360 to write a book or at least cover the topic of, of Arate. Yeah, dude. Well, before I wrote a book,

00:06:22.560 I tattooed my, I got this little blur thing on, so you can't see, I got an Arate tattoo on my right arm.

00:06:29.020 So Arate, you're exactly right. We translate the ancient Greek word as excellence or virtue.

00:06:34.720 Uh, but the way I like to frame it up is if you ask the ancient, you know, Greek philosophers,

00:06:39.660 Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, or the Roman Stoics, Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, how to live a good

00:06:45.660 life, a good, noble, heroic life, they'd answer you in a single word. That word is Arate. So again,

00:06:51.440 it means excellence or virtue, but it has a deeper meaning, something closer to being your best self

00:06:57.300 moment to moment to moment. And in any given moment, you're capable of being this. And if you're

00:07:02.500 actually being this, and there's a gap between who you could have been and who you're actually being,

00:07:06.540 that's where regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression exists. When you close the gap,

00:07:11.240 you're living with Arate, you're being your best self. And you feel this deep sense of, of meaning,

00:07:17.200 purpose. It was the summum bonum of the ancient world, the greatest good to close that gap,

00:07:22.180 to be your best self. They call that eudaimonia. But anyway, that's the one word summation of my

00:07:27.000 life's work. What all ancient wisdom, traditions, philosophers, faith traditions, and modern science

00:07:32.880 says is how you live a good life. Yeah, that's, you know, as you were talking about the gap from

00:07:38.260 where you want to be or who you could be to who you actually are. I know a lot of guys that have

00:07:42.760 listened to the podcast have heard me talk about the integrity gap. And that's exactly what you're

00:07:48.340 talking about right now. We all have it. It all exists. And the larger it is, the more depressed,

00:07:55.480 the more anxious, the more potentially even suicidal that you are. The guys that I work

00:08:00.880 with on a daily basis who are really, really struggling with self-confidence issues. I know

00:08:06.300 you talk a lot about that in the book, struggle with interpersonal relationships with spouses and

00:08:12.300 friends and kids. Their integrity gap is so wide. It's really difficult for them to function with any

00:08:19.880 sort of mastery in their life, which is another point that you talk often about as well.

00:08:25.480 A hundred percent. I mean, that's at the end of the day, that's it. Are you living in integrity

00:08:29.840 with your highest ideals? Now, you'll never do it perfectly, but you got to do it more and more

00:08:34.220 consistently. And as you know, I talk a lot about forging anti-fragile confidence. And, you know,

00:08:39.820 if you want confidence, the word means intense trust, confidering with intense trust. If you and I

00:08:45.780 are going to trust each other, I got to do what I say I'm going to do. If I don't show up for,

00:08:49.620 you know, our time together today, you may give me one pass, man. But if I did it again,

00:08:54.020 you'd be like, I don't trust this guy and you shouldn't trust me. So if you want to have trust

00:08:57.860 in yourself, you want to have confidence in yourself, you got to do what you say you will

00:09:01.320 do. You say you're going to eat, you're going to move, you're going to sleep in certain ways.

00:09:05.200 You're going to spend time with your kids in a certain way. You're going to treat your spouse

00:09:08.020 in a certain way. And you don't, you're eroding your trust every single time you allow that integrity

00:09:12.760 gap to come into play. And stated positively, when you turn the corner and you start more consistently

00:09:18.500 doing those little things, your life changes. And again, I talk about moving from just forging

00:09:25.220 what I call anti-fragility, which we might talk about, but yeah, integrity gap is what it's all

00:09:30.700 about. It is really interesting to see guys who will do something as seemingly insignificant as hit

00:09:37.560 their snooze the first thing in the morning. And then they'll wonder why the rest of their day goes

00:09:41.920 bad. Well, the very first thing you did is you lied to yourself. You told yourself you're going to

00:09:47.860 get out of bed at five o'clock or six o'clock or nine o'clock or whatever your time is.

00:09:51.940 And the very first action of the day was a lie. It was, it was, it was a deceit. You deceived

00:09:58.960 yourself. And I, the language that I use, and I'm not pointing fingers. I talk to myself like this too,

00:10:04.460 is a little bit of our soul dies when we do that. Dude. And again, Abraham Maslow says the great

00:10:12.040 humanistic psychologist, he came up with the whole hierarchy of needs, the self-actualizing

00:10:17.020 individual. That dude's intense. He said that every single time you deviate from what you're

00:10:22.400 capable of doing, it makes an imprint on your consciousness. And those days that start with

00:10:26.540 a snooze, then they go here, here, here, here, here, you know, and you took all these steps back.

00:10:31.500 Those are the days you want to numb yourself. That's the day you, you know, you binge drink,

00:10:35.140 you binge eat, you binge watch, you do whatever you do to ignore the fact that you were so far out of

00:10:39.640 integrity. Now, again, stating, stating it positively, it's the little things, you know, it's the John

00:10:44.820 wouldn't put on your socks, get the little tiny mundane things, right? You build this trust,

00:10:50.160 you dominate the fundamentals, um, and you can fundamentally and permanently change your life

00:10:54.520 as you recreate that trust with yourself, deepen relationships and all that stuff.

00:10:59.760 Uh, I, I can't remember who it was. Uh, there was a, a naval, uh, admiral, I believe, uh, who did a

00:11:06.980 speech and then eventually wrote a book called make your bed, make your bed, dude. Admiral McRaven,

00:11:11.620 head of so-called. I was like, this is total bullshit. I'm like, this is so dumb. Make your 1.00

00:11:17.580 bed. Come on. Like this guy can clearly give us a better message than this. And, you know,

00:11:23.120 the more I dive into that, the more I make my bed, the more I do the little things, whether it's,

00:11:28.260 you know, seeing a piece of trash on the ground and picking it up, um, or, you know, instead of

00:11:32.560 stepping over it, like we often do. Um, or if I'm, you know, painting my room, you know, I could say,

00:11:38.740 ah, leave that corner. It's good enough. No, it's not good enough. Like do all the little

00:11:43.160 things exceptionally well, because every little thing counts to the fullest.

00:11:48.080 So dude, so I'm seeing on your wall, you know, you got protect. And I want to talk about that

00:11:51.980 because that's what my business heroic is all about. But, uh, it would, that was Admiral McRaven,

00:11:57.440 head of so calm. Um, I gave a talk for the U S men's national team the other day before they play

00:12:03.100 their game. And they came, they wanted me to come in and talk about anti-fragile confidence.

00:12:06.920 And I introduced the head coach to another friend of mine. Here's the former head of

00:12:10.700 Naval special warfare. He ran seal team six dev group, you know, when we did, uh, the minimum

00:12:16.320 odd mission and all that stuff. Anyway, he's talking about, you know, the U S team wants

00:12:20.140 to win the world cup in 2026. That's as close to as impossible as you're going to get, you

00:12:24.400 know what I mean? Let's go. That's a big climb. So he and I traded some texts with the head coach

00:12:29.140 and he said, if you want to achieve non-linear things, AKA do what many seats see to be

00:12:35.080 impossible. It's the tiniest little things that matter the most, those tiny little marginal

00:12:39.800 gains, those little things that you don't think matter become the things that separate

00:12:43.660 you from your prior self and connect you to that best version of you. Um, and it's exciting.

00:12:50.040 These are not chores. This isn't another list of chores that you have to do. This is a simple

00:12:54.940 formula through which you can express the best version of yourself, but you got to be intense.

00:12:59.220 You got to be willing to be all in, stay grounded, obviously, but show up like you mean it.

00:13:03.460 Um, and life takes on a whole different meaning, you know, and we've been blessed to serve people

00:13:07.960 at the highest end of, you know, the military and executives and sports and whatnot, and people

00:13:13.680 who don't want to get out of bed tomorrow morning. And it's the same exact game plan, be your best

00:13:18.560 self moment to moment to moment. And when you do that, um, some powerful things start to happen,

00:13:25.580 you know? Well, and it's interesting too, because you can see it at, at the, at the smallest

00:13:31.240 level. So one thing I've always really enjoyed doing is coaching my son's, uh, baseball and

00:13:36.300 football and basketball teams about the time they get to seven, eight years old, they outgrow

00:13:41.480 my basketball coaching. Cause that's not my sport, baseball, football. I could coach them all the way

00:13:46.440 through high school, but basketball, I'm like, all right, you're, you, I don't know what I'm doing

00:13:51.100 anymore. You need to go with a better coach at this point. And so I'm coaching my youngest son's

00:13:55.800 basketball team. He's seven years old and there's this little kid on the team and he's the stud,

00:14:01.260 right? Like he's the stud of the team and every team has one and every team knows who the stud is

00:14:07.640 and the reason he's a stud granted. Yeah, I know there's, there's some personality in there.

00:14:14.860 Um, there's probably just some tenacity. There's just some mental and physical development that you

00:14:20.280 could attribute it to, but you know, the kid plays at home, you know, he's got a basketball

00:14:25.840 hoop at home, you know, dad or mom is out there every day throwing, you know, working on passes,

00:14:31.840 working on shots, talking about mentality. This is a seven, eight year old kid. And we see it at

00:14:38.260 that level. And then we don't think is I'm 42 years old that at 42 years old, it applies to a guy

00:14:45.080 like myself when clearly it applies to a seven year old, let alone a 42 year old.

00:14:50.800 Dude. So Angela Duckworth wrote the book on grit, right? So the science of grit and, and my son's

00:14:57.200 into chess. And so he, he six months ago, you know, got into it a year ago, he got into it six months

00:15:03.300 ago. He just started destroying me. So we reached that point. It's like, don't listen to anything I

00:15:07.180 have to say about chess. You listen to your coach for that, but I'm pretty good at the other stuff.

00:15:11.800 But what Angela, so peak performance, et cetera, but Angela Duckworth says that talent matters.

00:15:17.620 Talent is the speed with which you pick up a skill. So, you know, my son has an aptitude for chess.

00:15:23.180 That kid probably has an aptitude for basketball, but talent does nothing without effort. Talent

00:15:28.740 times effort or reps on the small things equals skill, skill times more effort equals achievement.

00:15:36.020 So effort counts twice in everything we want to do. And then it's just a matter of time and reps.

00:15:40.620 What do you want in your life? What do you need to do to get it? Start paying the price.

00:15:45.520 And then the, you know, the harder you work, the more little things you do, the faster you pay that

00:15:51.140 price, the more you're going to achieve the results that you want to achieve in any aspect of your life,

00:15:55.660 whether it's a seven-year-old on the basketball court or us, you know, in the metaphorical or real

00:16:00.580 boardroom. These things are not that complicated. And then the way that I frame it up for the guys and

00:16:06.240 women we work with is think back to a time in your past when you were at your best. We've all experienced 0.99

00:16:12.480 peak moments, whether it was a day, a week, a month, a year, or a decade. What were you doing when you were

00:16:17.720 at your best? Make a list of the things you were doing, the things you weren't doing. And what's one thing

00:16:22.640 you're currently not doing that you were doing when you were at your best? Get on that. Make your prior best

00:16:28.240 your new baseline. Like that and anti-fragility were the two things that the, uh, the soccer guys

00:16:33.660 like the most, you know, and one of the most is if you have achieved a high level of success in the

00:16:38.240 past, don't give up your gains. Know what that was that you were doing, create a protocol, um,

00:16:44.680 and then work it, especially when you don't feel like it, which is a whole nother chat about

00:16:49.040 emotional stamina and how you actually create anti-fragility. Um, but yeah, man, it really isn't that

00:16:55.860 complicated. Um, as they say, you know, it's simple, but not easy. Um, but it's also exciting

00:17:01.280 because when you get it and you start executing it, um, things can change.

00:17:05.420 Are, are there things, you know, as you talk about that list, uh, you know, are there certain things

00:17:10.300 that, um, higher performers execute on not just specific to their craft, but just generalized,

00:17:19.620 you know, I think we were talking about Andy Priscilla earlier. And so I, I'm sure you're familiar

00:17:23.540 with Andy and you've got a program like 75 hard where it's, you know, drink so much water,

00:17:29.180 read 10 pages a day, get two workouts at a day, a day, you know, those things, that's the list.

00:17:34.100 And I know that when I was doing that list performance was through the roof. Are there,

00:17:39.120 are there things that high performers do every day that make a huge difference regardless of what

00:17:45.980 their skillset or their chosen, you know, profession or craft is? Yeah. So I like to split the

00:17:51.980 fundamentals up into two things, the idiosyncratic, this is your craft. This is what you need to do.

00:17:56.860 And then the kind of general and universal. Um, but I would offer that, that the individual

00:18:01.800 listening to this, um, right now, think about what you did when you're at your best. I can give you,

00:18:07.880 and I'll talk about eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, and focusing your mind, which are the

00:18:11.800 five fundamentals. I stress again and again and again, but at the end of the day, we've each

00:18:16.500 experienced a really high level of performance in our energy, our work, and our love. And we just

00:18:21.700 need to slow down long enough to do an inventory of the things that we were doing and then do them.

00:18:26.420 And I come back to that one exercise all the time, which is what's the number one thing I could start

00:18:31.440 doing that if I started doing, it would most change my life. And what's the number one thing I know I

00:18:36.420 need to stop doing that if I stopped doing, it would change my life. I've done that when I've been

00:18:40.720 really experiencing hard times and I do it every single time I want to go next level, which is right

00:18:45.180 now. So every day I'm asking myself that question, you know, and I'm getting the data and I'm looking at

00:18:49.600 what work, what works and what doesn't, etc. But again, the eating, the moving, the sleeping, the

00:18:54.780 breathing, the focusing, getting your energy dialed in, becoming more productive, and then deepening

00:18:59.500 your personal relationships are the three areas that I focus in energy, work and love, we call it the big

00:19:05.240 three. And then it's obvious stuff, you know, we all know what we could be doing nutrition wise, the

00:19:10.340 question are you doing it? Sleep is my, my personal, both kryptonite when I'm not paying attention to it

00:19:17.100 and superpower when I am. So I get sleep, I sleep like I'm a world class athlete, dude. And I train

00:19:23.320 like I'm an athlete and I show up with my physical presence that way. And then work, I've got certain

00:19:28.520 things I do. I'm creative before reactive. So I don't open up my inbox, whether it's text or email

00:19:34.560 until I've done the most important thing that day. I pause, I think about what I need to get done. And I do

00:19:39.480 that what we call it what's important now my win. And then I do some very basic things in my

00:19:44.040 relationship. I recommit to being with my wife, we've been together for 17 years, I want to be

00:19:48.520 with her for at least 51 years, I recommit to that. And being best friends with my adult kids every

00:19:53.700 single morning. And then I create little micro moments with my wife and with my kids, without my

00:19:59.580 phone where I'm just connected to them. Very, very simple things that we architected our heroic app

00:20:05.280 around this to create a protocol that you execute consistently. Those are a few of the fundamental

00:20:11.500 things that we teach. But I'll emphasize again, we each have a certain set of things we do and we're

00:20:17.140 at our best. And my big thing is I need to help you figure out what it is, and then help you light

00:20:22.080 your own fire and then do it every single day, especially on the days you don't feel like it.

00:20:27.120 That's when things change.

00:20:29.500 Yeah, I mean, I already know what mine are. My issues are sleeping, because I don't like to go

00:20:35.040 to sleep at night. It almost feels like a waste of time. I know how important it is. I know the

00:20:41.040 science. I've read all the data. I've gone through it. Everybody tells me how important it is. I'm like,

00:20:46.100 oh, I don't want to sleep. I want to send this email out, or I want to read the rest of this book,

00:20:51.640 or I want to watch that show or call that person. So it's that. The other one is nutrition,

00:20:58.120 because I'm busy. So I'm running from appointment to appointment to this to that. I'm like, all right,

00:21:03.980 let me just run through the drive through it, the fast food place of choice, instead of meal prep.

00:21:10.300 Those are my big issues. I know if I stopped doing that, that alone would make a huge difference.

00:21:17.720 But the other thing that gets to me, and I want to know what you think about this, is we're bombarded

00:21:23.200 with minutia. Today, I had to go to the DMV, and I set up an appointment at the DMV, which is a

00:21:30.180 pretty cool service. My appointment was at 1040, but still, they didn't call me until 1055. So 15

00:21:36.960 minutes late, even past the appointment, the lady there, surprisingly, she was a pleasant lady,

00:21:42.620 which isn't, you know, a place that's notorious for pleasant people. You know, and it's like,

00:21:48.820 and then the other day, some, some woman, she turned into the wrong lane, and she slammed into 0.99

00:21:54.060 my car. And you know, now I got to drive to the neighboring town, and I got to take my car into

00:21:59.260 the collision center, so they can give me an estimate on the truck. And it's all this little

00:22:04.440 bullshit that comes up, that man, if I could recapture two hours of my day, that isn't filled 0.99

00:22:10.280 with nonsense, then yeah, I could eat a little better, or I could sleep a few more hours, or I 1.00

00:22:16.520 could read a few more pages of the Bible, or whatever, you know, arete, or whatever book I

00:22:21.840 was reading at the time. Yeah, so for me, I know what it feels like to feel highs and lows. So I

00:22:28.180 wanted to end my own life 25 years ago. That's where I was. My dad struggled with alcohol. I know

00:22:32.240 we've got some stuff in common with kind of my father was there physically, but not emotionally,

00:22:37.060 you know, good man, but worked in a grocery store for 39 years struggle with alcohol. I would have

00:22:41.600 too, if I had five kids trying to raise five kids going to Catholic school. Yeah, no doubt.

00:22:47.240 His dad struggled with alcohol ended his own life, etc. So so, you know, I jokingly say I lost the

00:22:53.160 lottery on the genetics and the environment on that one. So I know what it feels like to feel the depths

00:22:57.520 of despair. And I know what it feels like to feel very, very, very good and grounded and just performing

00:23:03.440 at a very high level. And so if I don't get seven, like last night, I got eight hours of

00:23:08.600 sleep, which is my kind of sweet spot baseline, you know, eight, eight and a half hours of sleep,

00:23:13.740 I'm feeling I'm completely different human being than six and a half. And I like feeling like that,

00:23:19.460 that my mind works like that race car that just needs a certain type of fuel, which includes sleep

00:23:24.800 for me. So I can get more done on a night that I've gotten a great night of sleep than a day

00:23:29.440 in like in three hours, dude, then I can get done it all day on six, six and a half,

00:23:34.280 even seven hours of sleep. So I've made that connection. So then I've prioritized my sleep

00:23:38.580 where I shut down. And I'm getting up at four, 435am without an alarm, because I go to bed at

00:23:43.820 seven, 738. And again, I'm that guy. But we live in the country, we homeschool, they're not playing

00:23:48.740 sports at late. And I go to bed when the kids go to bed an hour and a half after the sun sets.

00:23:52.460 Um, so you know, I'm in bed for eight to nine hours a night. And I prioritize that

00:23:57.480 because I know that I perform at my best. But you know, Bezos talks about the same thing.

00:24:03.140 Buffett talks about the same thing. You look at LeBron James, you look at these Roger Federer,

00:24:06.820 the great athletes prioritize sleep. So I get more done in less time, because I'm at my best. And then

00:24:13.860 I trade off things like I don't I don't care what's happening in the sports world. I don't care

00:24:18.760 what's happening on Netflix. I just don't care. I want to be on the other side of the TV screen,

00:24:24.020 if you will, you know, I want to create a life of meaning. I want to be the hero of my own story.

00:24:27.700 So I've said no, to a ton of stuff. And my joke to guys is, yeah, let me follow you around for a

00:24:32.540 day. And let's see if we can find 10, 15, 30, 60, 90 minutes, where we can reprioritize a little bit,

00:24:38.740 you know what I mean? And it's always in the bathroom, get out of the bathroom with your phone.

00:24:42.780 That's what it is for me. If I just leave my if I leave my phone out of the bathroom,

00:24:46.480 man, I'll recapture an hour of my day easy every day. Yeah. But again, we're going hard. We're

00:24:52.100 blessed to love what we do. You know what I mean? And we just want to do more of it. But I've I've

00:24:56.440 framed it up where I'm going to get more of what I want to get done by making sure I shut down and

00:25:01.980 give myself a little window of time without the blue light. So I get into deep sleep faster. I stay

00:25:06.360 there longer. I wake up feeling the way that I want to feel. And then, you know, nutrition, it's a few

00:25:13.160 simple levers, you know, then we put that on autopilot. And the whole thing just becomes one

00:25:19.020 big game, you know? What about the so what about just that daily minutiae, you know, the stuff that

00:25:24.920 just comes up, you don't plan for, you know, it's 15 minutes here. It's five minutes here. I'm at the

00:25:33.100 dentist's office right now. So trust me, like, you know, I had put it off. I'm 18 months out from the

00:25:37.840 last appointment, you know, and so literally, I'm living it right now. I gotta I'm gonna drive 90

00:25:41.920 minutes home. Here I am not in my studio. There you go. But if I have to do anything, you know,

00:25:47.400 Seneca said the wise man does nothing reluctantly. So in Buddha said the same thing, you're gonna do

00:25:53.080 anything to do with all your heart. Like, so when I'm going to do something, I radically accept it,

00:25:57.280 then I'm all in. And then, you know, you can stack different things or whatever. But but the reality

00:26:01.880 is that's life. And then, you know, business wise, I'm blessed to have a team. And I'm really,

00:26:07.420 really disciplined in doing what I and only I can do. And then leveraging the rest and empowering

00:26:12.800 the team to do what they're great at, you know. And then it just is what it is. And I also try to

00:26:18.320 use those moments as opportunities to, to appreciate things, you know, the DMV, you know,

00:26:24.580 like, we're blessed to have the lives we have, right? We go in there, we get this service and

00:26:28.300 easier said than done. And I had a fun experience with the passport office the other day. I'm like,

00:26:32.640 wow, you came in hot, dude, I'm like 20 seconds in. And I'm like, I'm trying to be cool. And you

00:26:38.160 know, like, be all awesome. Like, oh, bless you. Wow, I'm the first appointment of your day. We're

00:26:43.260 already getting that heat. All right, cool. But it is what it is, you know, and we live in a life where

00:26:47.880 we're so blessed, you know, and we can take it for granted, or we can take it as granted. And the best

00:26:52.940 among us, you know, remember to be grateful for the little things, especially when we find them

00:26:57.500 annoying. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, now that you say that,

00:27:03.760 I'm thinking about what I was doing as I was waiting, you know, 1520 minutes, which again,

00:27:08.480 is not a long time at the DMV. Like, I heard the person in front of me, they checked in at the

00:27:14.600 window. They're like, do you have an appointment? The lady said no. And she's like, yeah, it's a two

00:27:18.500 hour wait. If you don't have an appointment. I'm like, oh, dang. And the guy's like, yeah,

00:27:22.500 he actually waited. I was like, oh my gosh, like just go home and just make an appointment for

00:27:29.280 tomorrow. But what I was going to say is I was on my phone. I, I was, I cleared out my entire email

00:27:36.460 inbox. Um, I followed up on all my social media DMS. Uh, I made a couple of gratitude texts and I

00:27:43.080 was like, Hey man, appreciate you for this. Love you for this. Thanks for this. Thanks for that.

00:27:47.180 I made a post on social media. So it's like, it's not a complete waste. If to the quote that you said

00:27:53.600 earlier, and I wrote it down here, the wise man does nothing reluctantly that that makes a lot of

00:27:59.240 sense to me. Yeah. And you stacked it up, you know, it is what it is. It's great, man. Let me just step

00:28:05.620 away from the conversation very quickly. Uh, one aspect of Brian's message that we haven't really

00:28:11.220 got into today is the concept of making each day a masterpiece. And once I figured this out in my

00:28:18.560 own life, the world around me started to change, but that really isn't entirely true. Nothing

00:28:24.300 changed per se. I just began to see opportunities in a new light, not previously available or

00:28:32.100 recognizable to me. Uh, and that's one of the concepts that we teach in our free battle ready

00:28:37.340 program. And when you sign up, you're going to unlock access to a series of emails that are

00:28:42.420 designed to help you paint the masterpiece of your life in the next 90 days. And everything that you

00:28:49.300 learn, you'll be able to apply for the rest of your life, creating an almost unrecognizable life

00:28:55.540 for yourself. And I think more importantly, for the people that you care about, you can learn more

00:29:01.640 and you can get signed up at order of man.com slash battle ready. That's order of man.com slash

00:29:08.420 battle ready. Do that right after the conversation for now, let's get back to this great conversation

00:29:13.000 with Brian. I did some research. I always want to be researched as I, as I talk with somebody and

00:29:19.440 know who I'm talking with and what they're about. You said something that sounds really audacious and

00:29:25.620 a little bit arrogant, honestly. And I'm really curious about your take on it. When you say something

00:29:30.320 like, uh, you know, by the, by 2051, uh, I want to be sure that 51% of humanity is flourishing.

00:29:38.100 I'm like, well, like, what does that look like? How does that work? Like, what about people who

00:29:43.400 I'm very pessimistic about that statement, but I want to give you an opportunity to explain it.

00:29:48.220 Cause I'm really curious about it. Yeah. Yeah. So on one arm, I've got that tattoo. You can't see this,

00:29:53.400 but on the other, I've got heroic. Um, I actually got that from Martin Seligman,

00:29:57.280 the founder of the positive psychology movement. So up until the year 2000, almost all the research

00:30:02.500 on the science of wellbeing was on the negative stuff, depression, schizophrenia, et cetera. We

00:30:06.740 could take someone from negative 10 to zero in 2000, Martin Seligman, a guy named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

00:30:12.320 and some others founded the positive psychology movement. At that meeting in 2000, they created a

00:30:17.780 moonshot goal for their movement. They wanted to help create the research that would help create a world

00:30:22.620 in which 51% of humanity was flourishing by 2051. The first time I heard that, like a decade ago,

00:30:28.200 I thought it was crazy. I still think it's crazy. And that's what I've dedicated my life to helping

00:30:33.120 create. I'm not saying I'm going to do that. I'm saying that I want to create, I want to play my

00:30:37.780 role humbly yet heroically. Well, I, you know, I run a company called heroic public benefit corporation.

00:30:44.280 Um, and I'm all in dude. I'm pessimistic about that. Frankly, you know? Yeah. I mean,

00:30:49.200 you look at our world, just when you think it can't get any worse, the last 60 days happen. I

00:30:53.460 mean, we live in, in historically significantly chaotic times. Um, but there's a science to it,

00:31:00.360 you know, and we did do a lot of research on our app and the work we do with corporate clients and

00:31:04.500 individuals. And there's a specific measure of flourishing. It's a, it's a simple scale that

00:31:09.440 measures someone's wellbeing. And we know already that if you use our app, um, with some coaching,

00:31:15.340 we do with corporate clients, you'll go from the 53rd percentile flourishing, which is average to

00:31:19.980 the seventies in 30 days. Um, but it's, it's an incredible, um, audacious statement that I got

00:31:26.280 from him. And to me, it's not arrogant. It's humble. Cause, cause I got to show up every day,

00:31:30.740 dude. And this is why I work my protocol as intensely as I do. Um, I'm all in man. I mean,

00:31:36.460 and you look at protector back there, you know what the word hero means in ancient Greece?

00:31:40.420 Uh, no, I don't. It means protector. So in ancient Greece, when they were coming up with a word for

00:31:46.260 hero, dude, it wasn't tough guy or killer of bad guy. The word they came up with was protector.

00:31:51.860 So a hero has strength for two. A hero, isn't a victim. A hero runs toward the sound of the,

00:31:57.560 of the, it wasn't gunfire in that point. Um, but dude, we stand up, we do what we need to do to earn

00:32:03.500 and forge that strength for two. And our secret weapon is love. We're committed to something bigger

00:32:08.380 than ourselves. And I've dedicated my life to a mission. That's going to force me to bring out

00:32:11.980 the best in me that we've trained 10,000 coaches from a hundred countries. Um, and we're just getting

00:32:17.220 going, you know? Um, but it's an insane goal. There's no question about that. And I hope it

00:32:22.040 doesn't come across as, as egotistically arrogant. Um, it's an audacious goal. I'm unapologetically

00:32:27.840 ambitious in what I feel called to do. Um, but it's not me. It's, it's how do we, you and me

00:32:33.600 come together and be our best selves, iron sharpens iron. And how do we lead our community as well?

00:32:38.520 And how do we do that in aggregate? And then we do have a shot, you know, if we can get millions

00:32:42.420 of people lighten up to be the protectors, to be the individuals capable of, of, um, of leading,

00:32:49.000 we can make a significant difference. There's no question in my mind, you know? Um, and we've got

00:32:54.020 27 years to do it. So let's get to work, right? Well, and I don't say it and I hope it doesn't come

00:32:58.940 across as I'm saying it as an indictment against you or anything like that. I'm just thinking to

00:33:03.100 myself, probably similar to the way you saw it when you first read it, like what, like what does

00:33:07.740 flourishing even mean? And you said there's some metrics. I'm really curious about what the, what,

00:33:12.820 what, what would be a metric of flourishing? I mean, you could talk about, uh, you know,

00:33:17.760 financial capital, I would say, um, overall maybe job satisfaction, uh, probably some level of

00:33:25.920 confidence I imagine is in there, but are there other metrics that determine what flourishing actually

00:33:30.760 is? Yeah. So then, um, to step back, there's two different motivations, right? There's extrinsic

00:33:36.480 and instruments intrinsic. So extrinsic is what we've been seduced to go after the fame, the wealth

00:33:41.100 and the hotness scientists say, even if you are successful in pursuit of fame, wealth and hotness,

00:33:47.060 even if you were successfully pursuing them, you will be quote, less psychologically stable than people

00:33:53.100 pursuing intrinsic stuff. So flourishing is a measure of how well you're mastering the intrinsic

00:33:57.740 stuff. Are you becoming a better person, which would involve purpose, confidence, all those other

00:34:02.580 things. And then do you have deep personal relationships? Are you prioritizing that

00:34:06.920 relationships and love is like, dude, some say that, that healthy life is love, full stop.

00:34:12.880 Um, and then are you making a contribution to your community, not measured by Instagram followers or

00:34:17.900 square footage in your house or whatever it is, you know? So when we focus on those intrinsic

00:34:23.480 motivators, which we can measure, you know, do you feel that you're becoming a better person

00:34:27.540 and mastering yourself and your craft? Do you feel like you're deepening relationships? Do you feel

00:34:31.980 like you're making a contribution to your community? Those three things are going to be the cornerstones

00:34:36.400 of a healthy flourishing life. Um, you can measure them and you can improve them. And this is my life's

00:34:43.300 obsession, ancient wisdom, modern science. And we've done a lot of scientific research on our coach

00:34:48.420 program and on our app with leading wellbeing researchers, randomized controlled studies that have

00:34:54.560 proven the efficacy of what we're talking about right here. Cause there's simple fundamental

00:34:58.620 things you can do that simply fundamentally change your life. Um, but I get it. And I'm, I'm, um,

00:35:04.500 obviously skepticism is important, you know, and just rational attunement to things that actually

00:35:09.720 work and getting out of the raw, raw, palm, palm waving. And for me, I keep on saying it, but it's

00:35:14.560 ancient wisdom, modern science, practical tools. It needs to work or not, you know, and you can

00:35:19.260 scientifically measure these things on an individual level. And by definition, you'll affect

00:35:24.220 change globally if we can do so in aggregate. But why I have an affinity to you is you're training

00:35:29.880 heroes. That's literally what I'm committed to doing with heroic. We train heroes is what we do.

00:35:35.460 Like that is our, one of our taglines, you know what I mean? Let's go, let's do the work.

00:35:39.680 That's what I'm seeing when I look at you and the order of man and sovereignty and what it means to be

00:35:44.820 a true man and that healthy level of masculinity fully expressed in service to something bigger

00:35:49.700 than ourselves. I mean, that is heroic literally by definition. Yeah. And look, I mean, even just

00:35:55.680 to go back to skepticism or even the, even the word pessimism, pessimism, which we both use is

00:36:00.740 like, I know there's a lot of people out there who they're pessimists just because like, they like

00:36:06.840 to stir the pot and you know, you see him at work. Everybody knows the guy at work. Who's not

00:36:13.240 really there to say, Hey, let's, let's, you know, let's red team this thing and figure out what's

00:36:18.400 wrong with it so we can improve it. Let's just try to blow it up for the sake of destroying things or

00:36:23.740 making people feel shitty. And that's the difference. Like if more people were cautiously optimistic, 0.96

00:36:30.440 maybe is a better phrase to use and, and said, okay, well, what does that mean? What does that look

00:36:36.300 like? How can we get there? What problems exist? What problems do we need to solve and how can we solve

00:36:41.780 them? That's significantly better than saying that's stupid. That's not going to work, which 1.00

00:36:46.380 is what unfortunately I think way too many men do. Yeah. And then, you know, I kind of look at it as

00:36:52.220 like, there's a bell curve, you know, and there's always a virtuous mean, you know, there's a vice of 0.98

00:36:56.920 excess, just like there's a vice of deficiency. So if you have a healthy, virtuous level of optimism,

00:37:02.380 um, you're not, you're not cynical, right? Nor are you Pollyannishly optimistic. Like this is a very

00:37:10.820 grounded sense of, well, what do I want? We talk a lot about targeted thinking in my work.

00:37:15.940 So what do I want? Right. And then what do I need to do to get it? And then there's a whole science to,

00:37:21.900 um, setting goals and, and, um, achieving them obviously, but, but it's different than what

00:37:27.300 most people think. And the most important part of it is rubbing it up against reality. No naive

00:37:32.580 optimism allowed. You've got to look at the obstacles, you know, Stockdale paradox style. You got to know you

00:37:37.840 can achieve what you want, but you got to embrace reality. The more ruthlessly, the better, and then

00:37:43.040 see what's in the way, what you're going to need to do to get over it. And then again, get to work

00:37:47.460 paying the price. But I'm with you, dude, on the grounded optimism. Um, and, uh, it's got to be

00:37:53.680 rational. I mean, you have to actually believe that you can do it. I think it's on one side of

00:37:58.200 impossible or the other. Um, well, it's not impossible. There's no question. It's, it's not

00:38:02.500 impossible. It's very close to it, but we got, you know, uh, what else are you going to, what else

00:38:09.060 are we going to do? You know what I mean? And then it starts with me. It starts with you. It starts

00:38:12.540 with the individual listening and it's like, all right, let's go. That might be the best case that

00:38:16.740 you can make right there. Like what's the alternative. That's it. Like either you can be a good person and

00:38:24.680 you can help people or you can do the alternative and you can screw people over and you can take 0.98

00:38:29.400 advantage of people and make people feel like garbage. So what do you want to do here? Like 0.52

00:38:34.500 there's no case for the other option in my mind anyways. Yeah. And then let's go light the fire,

00:38:41.780 activate, enter the forge. You know, the subtitle of the book is activate your heroic potential.

00:38:46.420 So there are 451 little micro chapters because it takes 451 degrees to ignite a fire, but then you

00:38:53.360 got to get to 2200 degrees. You got to go from activation to the, the forge is 2200 degrees.

00:38:59.400 That's where a fort is. A sword is forged. Um, and what I see in your work, you know,

00:39:03.960 that unapologetic intensity, that's not maniky. We're not talking about ungrounded anything it's,

00:39:10.280 but it's, there's a ferocious commitment to do the work, pull your load. You know what I mean?

00:39:14.420 Like, like, yeah, you know, conquer the fear and laziness is how my coach Phil Stutz puts it

00:39:20.060 quoting his favorite teacher, Rudolph Steiner, two things getting in the way of us doing these things.

00:39:25.100 It's fear and it's laziness. All right, well, let's get to work. Um, conquering both of those.

00:39:30.860 And that's more than enough to keep us busy for a lifetime. So let's quit complaining about anyone

00:39:34.960 else and anything else and get to work. You know, I'm glad that you did the 451 instead of the 2200 or

00:39:42.560 whatever. Cause that just seems like way too many things. If I'm alive, it's volume one. So if I'm

00:39:49.980 alive over the next 25 years, I hope to produce five more of them, but yeah, yeah, we'll start out.

00:39:54.580 We'll start out small. I, the thing I did like about the book though, is if there's a particular,

00:39:59.340 I wrote down the, the, there's seven sections really. And so, you know, I'll pull out one of

00:40:05.000 them, which is dominate the fundamentals. And in there, there might be, you know, 30 things that you

00:40:09.560 can do. And maybe that's, that's your struggle. Maybe, you know, that that's where you need to

00:40:14.660 focus and you don't need to read the entire book today, but you can pull out one of these items

00:40:20.440 and say, all right, uh, you know, today I need to focus on, uh, you know, showing up fully at work

00:40:27.640 or, or showing up fully for, for my daughter or whatever it might be. Right. And you can just pull

00:40:33.300 out whatever you need to pull out based on where your integrity gap might be in any given moment

00:40:39.360 on any given day. That's exactly it. And I wrote it, you know, it's a dense book, you know,

00:40:45.040 a thousand pages, but each chapter is one, two, three pages long. So in and out, you know, here

00:40:50.360 you go more wisdom and less time. It's kind of one of the things we've done. I've done with my work

00:40:55.280 over the last 20 or so years, but that's right. You can open it up anywhere. We've got seven

00:40:59.320 objectives that I walk people through. Um, and then within each of them, you can find hopefully,

00:41:04.720 you know, uh, an idea that can fire you up for that day. Um, and you can read it while

00:41:09.820 you're waiting at the DMV, you know, you could have busted out five chapters there and let's

00:41:12.760 go. So super simple. I feel like maybe I should go back to the DMV just so I can do it.

00:41:21.020 You got a mobile office, man. That's right. So you said your coach is stuck. So he, he has

00:41:28.300 that documentary. He's, uh, what's the guy's name? Jonah Hill, right? That's his, uh, his therapist

00:41:33.620 too, I think. And they did that documentary on Netflix that came out. What? Not too long ago.

00:41:38.340 Yeah. So it's called Stutz. He's kind of known as the Hollywood guy, but I found him after he worked,

00:41:44.200 he wrote a book called the tools and I found it like 10 years ago. And I'm like, this book's amazing.

00:41:49.420 Um, wound up starting working with him seven years ago. We've done 400 one-on-one sessions.

00:41:54.380 Really? Wow. Okay. Yeah. Kind of, kind of my spiritual father, you know, uh, and, um,

00:42:00.440 deep influence on me, but just a brilliant guy who, uh, uh, has found a really practical way to

00:42:07.060 apply these ideas we're talking about. Um, and that movie was great. Cause Jonah went to him. I go to

00:42:12.320 him more for coaching, you know, um, what he does is more coaching than anything. But, uh, Jonah talks

00:42:17.460 about his own experience with his mental health challenges. And it's a great movie. You know,

00:42:22.380 you got a therapist dropping F-bombs with Jonah Hill, you know, it's like, it's a great way guys.

00:42:26.620 All right, there you go. Like it's okay to talk about your challenges, but it's really important.

00:42:32.860 The idea was to democratize and to de-stigmatize talking about these issues, you know, so it's a

00:42:38.660 beautiful film in that regard and a lot of practical, um, guidance, you know, but he's just

00:42:43.800 a brilliant man that, um, you know, has deeply affected me. I mean, especially for men too, you

00:42:48.720 know, you talk about the language. Occasionally I'll get guys who are like, oh, well, you know,

00:42:51.940 you shouldn't swear. And, and I actually agree with that. Like I tried to use, I tried not to use

00:42:56.500 profanity. I, I do occasionally it slips out, just, you know, part of my language. Um, but

00:43:02.640 also to the guys who were like, you shouldn't swear. I'm like, well, you wouldn't email me

00:43:06.320 if I didn't like, we wouldn't be having this conversation if I didn't right now. So, you

00:43:10.560 know, a few choice F-bombs, uh, well-placed F-bombs aren't really going to hurt anybody.

00:43:16.400 In fact, maybe it's just the jar that you need to, uh, start listening a little closer

00:43:21.040 and applying something into your life.

00:43:23.440 That's great. Yeah. My joke is I'm Mr. Rogers in public. Cause

00:43:26.440 I want kids listening and I want so many people, so many people, dude, just, it, it, it becomes

00:43:32.000 a thing, you know what I mean? It becomes another marketing hack of, yeah, I'm going to be the

00:43:35.240 one that puts these words and book titles and stuff and bless them, but we can do better

00:43:39.500 than that. You know? I mean, and again, then I'm also among friends. I can be a bit of a

00:43:43.720 swashbuckling Navy seal language wise, but there's a time and place for everything I think, you

00:43:47.960 know? And knowing, knowing when, um, and how to show up in integrity with who you are, I think

00:43:53.600 is super important. And it's just a, it's a choice point, right? How do you want to express

00:43:57.380 yourself? Is it, is it a deliberate act or is it kind of, you know what I mean? Just

00:44:01.400 flying off the handle kind of thing.

00:44:03.420 You, you said something earlier and I wasn't familiar with it. You said, I think what you

00:44:07.580 said is Stockdale paradox. Is that right? Did I, I wrote that down. What is that? I'm not

00:44:12.800 familiar.

00:44:13.080 Yeah. Uh, dude. So it's one of the micro chapters in the book, Jim Collins, my favorite

00:44:17.960 business guy. Um, he's just a brilliant guy, but, but James Stockdale is a good to

00:44:23.080 great. Is that?

00:44:24.100 Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah.

00:44:25.260 Good to great, great by choice, built to last, um, a bunch of, of different ones. Um, beyond

00:44:30.500 entrepreneurship 2.0 is actually my favorite one of his books as a sidebar, which is kind

00:44:35.380 of the best of, of all that. Anyway, he interviewed James Stockdale back in the day, vice Admiral James

00:44:40.540 Stockdale was the commanding officer of the prisoner of war camp in Vietnam. So he was

00:44:45.700 shot down early and, um, he was the commanding officer of all the prisoners of war during the

00:44:51.000 Vietnam war. And so he was also a practicing stoic. So he had studied at Stanford, got a

00:44:57.000 master's in something and, and wound up falling in love with Epictetus. So when he was shot

00:45:01.640 down, literally on the way down, dude, he's parachuting down and he's like, all right, I'm

00:45:05.020 leaving the land of technology to the land of Epictetus 2,000 years ago. And he was

00:45:10.060 immediately beaten and all this stuff. But, but rule number one of stoicism is you have

00:45:14.580 control over some things and you don't have control over other things. That's rule number

00:45:18.800 one. The only things you have control over are your thoughts and your behaviors. So the

00:45:23.580 Stockdale paradox is, um, is this. So Stockdale was asked by Jim Collins who survived the camps

00:45:31.700 and who died. And he said, interestingly, reflecting on what you commented on before, he said the naive

00:45:37.000 optimist died because the naive optimist thought they'd be freed. And they thought they'd be freed

00:45:42.360 by like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving came and went and they're like, Oh, well, Christmas, I'm going to

00:45:46.300 be free. No Christmas comes and goes and shoot. They're not free yet. Okay. Easter. I'm going to

00:45:50.640 be free by Easter. Anyway, they go through this naive optimistic and then they just give up and then

00:45:55.100 they die. And he said, the ones that survived were the ones that never gave up faith. They never lost

00:46:01.060 hope that they would eventually be freed, but they also embraced the constraints of reality,

00:46:06.080 the harsh reality that it was going to be years. And Stockdale said, it's going to be at least five

00:46:09.860 years. So he never gave up hope he'd be freed, but he also knew it was going to be insanely hard.

00:46:14.640 And it took him seven years to get free. So that's the Stockdale paradox. You never give up hope,

00:46:19.420 but you embrace reality. And this is another thing we've been seduced to think it's supposed to be

00:46:24.040 easy. So that's the most pernicious lie we've been told is you should have already achieved all the

00:46:29.820 success you want. And oh, by the way, you went after the wrong things, fame, wealth, and hotness.

00:46:33.980 You should have already had it and it should be easy. So when you face problems, something's wrong

00:46:38.140 with you, but you got to know it's supposed to be hard. That's rule number one of a good life.

00:46:42.420 Then you put in the effort and you're not going to get fixed overnight. It's going to take you days

00:46:47.420 and weeks and months and years to create the life you truly want, that you're truly proud of.

00:46:51.560 But the good news is the moment you start living in integrity, you change the momentum and you

00:46:56.220 start feeling more and more alive. But that's the that's the Stockdale paradox. One of the I respect

00:47:02.860 him and admire him. He's one of my heroes. I actually have now that you explain it, I have

00:47:09.020 heard of that. I didn't know that it was the Stockdale paradox, but I heard that if you're

00:47:12.960 overly optimistic, like you said, you'd give up. But if you're a pessimist, then you're going to die.

00:47:18.420 And it's those ones who are realistic about the situation who don't give up hope. I have heard of

00:47:23.760 that. I do want to challenge one thing you said, and only because I'm challenging it in my own

00:47:28.480 thought process. And I'm curious as to what you say. You said it's not supposed to be easy. It's

00:47:33.500 supposed to be hard. And, you know, I've gone through some of my own stuff over the past year

00:47:39.320 and a half. And I see what a lot of other men are going through, through the work that we do.

00:47:43.620 And I think that there's a lot of guys who believe that it only counts if it's hard. And so they'll

00:47:50.060 make life harder than it needs to be, or they'll be overly harsh on themselves. And then they end up

00:47:57.200 beating themselves into submission. And I think I kind of did that to myself. And that's part of the

00:48:04.440 reason I turned to alcohol as a way to escape and cope and all of that stuff. And there's a whole other

00:48:10.020 story there. But beating myself into submission, instead of affording myself some grace and allowing

00:48:20.840 myself to learn, like, what are your thoughts on that? Well, my thoughts are, I want you to push

00:48:25.600 back on everything, because this is such a good conversation. And those are two different things

00:48:29.980 to recognize that life is inherently hard is different than shaming yourself and all that stuff.

00:48:35.840 And from my vantage point, when we actually embrace just how hard life is, you give yourself a lot

00:48:41.560 more grace. And you realize, dude, I'm not alone. Everybody's struggling right now. So it's okay that

00:48:46.320 I'm one of the individuals struggling. And there's a science of self-compassion. That's really important

00:48:52.340 that I talk about a lot of my work. So self-compassion has three components. Number one, and this is a

00:48:59.700 science and the opposite of self-compassion is shame. Shame is a decent seasoning. It's not a 0%.

00:49:05.580 You want to have a certain level, one, two, 3%, maybe a little salt, you know what I mean? A little

00:49:09.940 salt and pepper on the overall main dish. Well, you want to be properly holding yourself to high

00:49:15.380 standards. But 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80%, dude, you don't eat that. So you want to sprinkle it in. So

00:49:20.940 the opposite of shame is self-compassion. The first thing you need to do is what they call common

00:49:25.520 humanity. So if you think you're the only one experiencing life's challenges, you're going to

00:49:30.280 shame yourself more. You're not going to give yourself grace. No, you're not alone. Every single human

00:49:34.420 being across history, all cultures have experienced the challenges you're facing. It's not because

00:49:40.180 you're you. It's because you're human is how one of my other coaches put it back in the day. That

00:49:44.800 gave me so much freedom, dude, because that's when I used to really beat myself up. I thought it was

00:49:49.260 me. I thought I had a character flaw. Something was inherently wrong with me versus what BJ Fogg says.

00:49:55.600 He says, it's not a character flaw. It's a design flaw. You haven't been taught how to live a good

00:50:00.380 life. So what if you were taught how to do these things? And just because you failed over and over

00:50:04.740 and over at changing behaviors doesn't mean you're a loser. It means you had a losing strategy. Let's

00:50:09.700 build a better, better designed strategy. So common humanity, and then you got to be nice to yourself,

00:50:15.720 push yourself, but do it like you would your seven-year-old basketball team. I hope, I know

00:50:20.400 you're not that guy. There are coaches that are those guys. It depends. Sometimes those little

00:50:26.860 turds deserve what they get from me. Those little turds get a little bit of heat. I get it. Dad

00:50:31.440 turns up the heat. Let's go. But even that's done with a level of love. You know what I mean?

00:50:35.020 Of course. So you're kind to yourself is the point. And then the third thing is you got to notice when

00:50:40.140 you're not being kind to yourself or when you think it's just you. That's the science of self-compassion.

00:50:44.800 You absolutely must give yourself grace and you simultaneously must hold yourself to high

00:50:50.740 standards. Then you shine a flashlight on what's working in your life and what's not. Then you bring

00:50:57.260 a hammer to what needs work and what you're going to do differently. So it's a really important

00:51:02.380 conversation. And then when you get that, it all becomes fun. So if I'm going up Mount Everest,

00:51:09.320 I'm not bitching about the weather. I know the weather's going to be tough. So when I get hammered

00:51:14.420 with health or relationship or work challenges, I don't complain. I laugh. Literally, personally,

00:51:20.040 I laugh and say the heroic gods are blessing us with an awesome challenge right now. Thank you for

00:51:24.160 the storm. Boom. Time for me to practice my philosophy. Epictetus said when life gives you

00:51:29.280 challenges, act as if the gods have given you an Olympic wrestler and you want to be your best.

00:51:34.960 You've got this young wrestler to go up against. Those are your challenges. That's the attitude we want

00:51:39.600 to bring. I'm not saying you should suffer. I'm saying the pain is inevitable. You're

00:51:44.400 suffering is optional, but it's your resistance to the pain that is creating the suffering,

00:51:49.780 right? This is a whole other conversation. When I can embrace it, I can use it. I can use it as fuel

00:51:56.420 the same way you use the weights in your gym to get stronger. You don't lift styrofoam weights in life.

00:52:02.660 You lift real weights. Well, that's what your challenges are. And when you approach them that way,

00:52:07.340 aka life's supposed to be challenging or hard, you smile and you bring it on. Even in the midst of

00:52:13.780 getting hammered, there's a certain subtle, you know, the Everest, Everest dudes, you know,

00:52:19.400 there are moments where you're like, Oh my God, I might get blown off the mountain while you're

00:52:22.500 focused. You know what I mean? But there's also a, this is what I signed up for. This is what I've

00:52:26.180 trained for. I want to be a protector. I want to be a hero for my kids and for my partner and for

00:52:31.360 my team and my community, et cetera, you know, and life takes on a deeper, um, meaning as we provide

00:52:38.800 and as we protect and do all the other things, you know? I, uh, I, I heard somebody, I wish I could

00:52:45.260 remember who told me, cause it was really powerful. They would run an exercise in, in a group environment.

00:52:50.340 And they would say that they want the participants to write down all of the negative things they think

00:52:55.660 about themselves. So I'm a loser. I'm a failure. I'm a bad dad. Uh, you know, I'm a drunk. I, 0.97

00:53:02.280 I've gone through bankruptcy and just write all the things they think horribly about themselves.

00:53:08.020 And then when they have that list, what they do is they then partner each other up with other people

00:53:13.160 and they say, I want you to take that list and I want you to read it. Like as if I, if you and I

00:53:20.460 we're partnered, I have to read this and say, Brian, you're a loser. You're a horrible person. 1.00

00:53:28.100 You are a pile of shit and, and people can't do it. Of course. Cause they're not going to, 1.00

00:53:35.020 they're not going to say that to somebody else. And it's an exercise in how harsh we are with

00:53:42.380 ourselves, but how generous, I think for the most part, we will be with other people,

00:53:49.840 but we won't, I think, I think this is especially true for men. We won't be that generous or kind

00:53:55.740 to ourselves. Dude, goosebumps. I mean, I, we're just getting to know each other, you know, but just

00:54:00.280 to feel you, like if, if I simply treated myself the way I would treat you, a guy that I really

00:54:05.400 respect and admire, just getting to know you, you know what I mean? But like, to your point,

00:54:08.640 I would never say that even to a stranger to be able to step back, but that takes the wisdom

00:54:13.300 and the discipline and the love and the courage in that moment. This is our day again. So in the moment

00:54:18.340 in which you start shaming yourself and start doing all those things you would never do to a

00:54:22.700 friend, step back. Cause in that moment, you're capable of being more. So again, the algorithm

00:54:27.680 works. If this, then are to, if this, then are to, it's the ultimate algorithm that answers all of

00:54:34.020 life's questions. What's the best you could do right now? It is never. Oh yeah. Yeah. Reminding

00:54:39.580 yourself that you are that, you know, whatever person you're shamed or all these different things that,

00:54:44.340 um, it's a discipline to notice when you're doing those things and to stop it. Right. And, and again,

00:54:50.360 to make it a game and it's hard to put into words how exciting it becomes. And the, the Stoics were

00:54:55.440 joyful. The Stoics learned how to control the negative thoughts and behaviors that allowed them

00:55:00.220 to have a life of deep meaning and purpose and lightness. There's a lightness that comes into your

00:55:05.320 life when you are again, closing that integrity gap, knowing that you're never going to do it

00:55:10.060 perfectly, but they called it eudaimonia, which again means good soul. You have this little

00:55:15.620 daimon, this little guiding spirit that the, the, the Romans called your genius. In Roman times,

00:55:21.560 everyone had a genius, just like in Greeks, they call it Greece. They called it your daimon.

00:55:25.880 The diminutive of daimon is demon. So we also always have a demon, demon daimon. Those voices are

00:55:33.740 barking at us all day, every day. We just need to slow down, talk to the daimon more and more 1.00

00:55:38.700 consistently live in integrity with what they're telling us to do. And then you experience a quote,

00:55:43.660 good soul, eudaimonia. And that feels great. Even in the midst of when it doesn't feel great,

00:55:49.620 there's something deeper than happiness. That's that joyful sense of I'm doing my best

00:55:53.940 in my, my current reality. Um, you know what I mean? We've all felt that when we do that,

00:56:00.960 our worst days can become our best days. Um, still having highs and lows, but those highs become

00:56:07.040 sustainably higher, the lows get scaffolded up. So we don't go off the rails when life inevitably

00:56:12.660 gets hard. You know, is that, is that concept of daimon and demon? Is that, would, would that be

00:56:19.100 the equivalent of in Christianity, you know, the spirit of God versus Satan, or is that something

00:56:24.800 different? A hundred percent, dude, I was raised Catholic. Look, I'm a good end of the day. You know,

00:56:29.220 I'm, um, uh, yes, that that's exactly it. And you can call it whatever you want to call it. We each

00:56:35.920 have our own, you know, wisdom and faith traditions. My thing is, are you living in integrity with it?

00:56:42.040 You know, I got, if we were at home, you know, on my studio, I've got all my heroes behind me.

00:56:47.020 My wife's right behind me. My, my kids are next to me. And then I've got Aurelius and Epictetus. I've got

00:56:52.280 Gandhi and Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, but I've got Jesus on the upper left. And that's exactly right.

00:56:58.420 And again, what would Jesus do? Well, that that's an unbelievably powerful reflection exercise.

00:57:04.300 It's an ancient stoic practice to think of your ideal sage, that individual that embodies the

00:57:09.320 qualities you want to embody. Okay. What would they advise you to do? I do it every morning in my

00:57:14.520 meditation practice. I invoke my heroes and my guides to give me guidance for that day. Um, and you know,

00:57:21.440 if we've lived in integrity with that, we'd be doing pretty well. What would Jesus do? There's always

00:57:26.560 that he, he, he's your demo right there. Always present. If that's your, your guide, you know,

00:57:32.160 but that's exactly right. Um, we have that guiding spirit and the less than helpful, um, spirit within,

00:57:38.900 you know? Yeah. We, you know, we can even, and I don't want to take Jesus or God out of the equation

00:57:44.820 because I'm, I'm, I'm a man of faith as well. And so I don't, I don't want anybody to misinterpret

00:57:48.880 what I'm about to say, but you could also do that with, with yourself. So you could say,

00:57:53.840 for example, if you're confronted with, uh, uh, a crisis, let's say you get into a bit of a road

00:58:00.300 rage or an altercation on the road, you could ask yourself something as simple as what would the guy

00:58:05.880 that I want to be do in this situation? Like if I, if it was like, if it was the guy that I wanted to

00:58:12.220 be like, that I was, that I looked up to that I wanted to be in five years, what would that guy do?

00:58:17.500 And then you can do that. It's so simple, dude. That's it. And scientists actually say,

00:58:23.140 that's the fastest way to get clarity on, on your, they call it a best self diary to think

00:58:28.160 about it. You in five years, you're your best version. Um, Matthew McConaughey says his conception

00:58:34.160 of, of a hero is the version of him. He's chasing always chasing. So that's a brilliant question is,

00:58:41.280 all right, what would the guy that I aspire to be do? And how do I make him proud? And this is where

00:58:45.740 these things are not chores. They're gifts you're giving to your future self because your choices

00:58:50.880 you're making right now and right now and right now are affecting you in an hour, in a day,

00:58:55.840 in a week, in a month. So give a gift to your future self that your future self is going to

00:59:01.160 look back at and say, thank you, dude. Perfect. We turned it around. You know, it's unfortunate.

00:59:05.360 It took us as long as it did, but here we go. Now we're starting the, uh, the forward motion,

00:59:10.080 but that's exactly right. And that's my, my whole life is connect to something bigger than yourself,

00:59:14.800 which is connected to the ultimate best self. And then those basic things, eating, moving,

00:59:20.020 sleeping, breathing, focusing, um, somewhat paradoxically are the most direct conduit to

00:59:26.400 our best selves. Because if you're tired and your energy sucks because you're making bad lifestyle

00:59:30.940 choices, it's very difficult to ask and get clarity on those questions. But when you take control of

00:59:36.720 those simple controllables, everything takes on a different, um, energy and velocity.

00:59:41.020 Yeah, man, that's powerful stuff. Well, admittedly, and in full disclosure,

00:59:46.100 I don't have a copy of your book yet. Your team is going to, cause we made this happen so quick.

00:59:50.460 Your team messaged me and they said, Hey, we've got something in the mail for you,

00:59:54.220 but I went through your website and your app and I'm like, this looks awesome. So as soon as we're done,

01:00:01.220 I'm actually going to sign up for it and go through it because I think there's a lot that I could value

01:00:05.720 from, uh, seeing, you know, the, the, the different objectives and everything in there. So,

01:00:10.260 and every once in a while I have a conversation like this, where I really connect with who I'm

01:00:14.820 talking with. I learned something from everybody, but man, I've enjoyed this conversation. If you

01:00:19.400 would just tell the guys, uh, where to pick up a copy of the book, you talked about the heroic app,

01:00:24.560 uh, the website, anything that you want to talk about and mention to direct the men to, uh, please

01:00:30.100 feel free to go ahead and do that. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to connecting on the other side of

01:00:34.240 this too. I'd love to tell you more about the app and I appreciate you making this happen so fast.

01:00:38.280 And I can't wait to get you the book and all the other things and we'll hook you up with the app

01:00:42.360 too. So we'll connect on the other side, but, um, R-A-R-E-T-E, you can get the book anywhere you

01:00:47.860 get books. Um, and then heroic.us is the website for our heroic app. You can also find the app in

01:00:55.860 your iOS and Android app stores. Um, the basic idea there is, um, I spent half of the last 25 years

01:01:02.920 reading great books and distilling them into little summaries. We call them philosopher's

01:01:08.040 notes, 20 minute summaries of 650 of the best books, ancient wisdom, modern science. You know,

01:01:13.620 people are too busy to read, right? But whether it's Jocko or, uh, you know, Angela Duckworth,

01:01:18.720 we talked about fill in the blank on your favorite teacher. I've probably featured the book. I need to

01:01:22.760 get yours in there. Um, but that's the heroic app. Then we also help you move from theory to

01:01:28.380 practice to mastery, getting clarity on who you are at your best. Um, and then recommitting to

01:01:33.600 being that best version of yourself every single day. Um, but that's heroic and R-A-R-E-T-E. And

01:01:38.420 dude, I'm just thrilled to be connected. I really appreciate your support. Admire who you are,

01:01:42.300 what you're doing and, um, honored to be here. Um, training some heroes together.

01:01:47.280 Likewise, man, the feelings mutual. So I appreciate you. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for the work

01:01:51.980 that you're doing. We got a lot of, we got, we, we got a lot of work. 51% of humanity flourishing

01:01:57.700 by 2051. We got a lot of work to do. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for joining me today.

01:02:02.320 All right, brother. Likewise.

01:02:04.700 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Brian Johnson. I love Brian's energy.

01:02:09.860 I love what he talks about him and I were on very similar wavelengths. Um, there was a couple of

01:02:14.980 things that I don't know that we disagreed on necessarily, but I wanted to clarify and, and,

01:02:20.480 and get a little clarification on what he meant. And, uh, I was really excited to hear about his

01:02:25.760 protocols, his new book, which I did suggest that I haven't got a copy of yet because we made this

01:02:31.100 thing happen so quick, but I am getting signed up for his, uh, heroic coaching program. He did talk

01:02:38.140 about having his own coach. He's coached over 10,000 coaches and yet you heard him. He has his own

01:02:43.980 coach. So even coaches have coaches and I'm going to be looking to get into his coaching program as

01:02:50.100 well. So please make sure you check out his work by a copy of his book, Arate, which is activate your

01:02:56.480 heroic potential. Look into his heroic training platform and tag him, take a screenshot, let him

01:03:04.080 know what you're listening to tag him, tag myself, let other people know, uh, go check out Montana

01:03:09.900 knife company.com. Check out store.order of man.com. Check out the battle ready course. Don't tell me I

01:03:16.000 don't have anything for you because we got it. Or if you're looking for a solution on how to be a more

01:03:21.340 well-rounded, more equipped, more righteous, capable man, it's my goal and my life's mission

01:03:28.280 to reclaim and restore masculinity. And most importantly, give you the tools that you need

01:03:33.280 to do the same in your own life. So those are your marching orders. Uh, we'll be back tomorrow for

01:03:40.140 our ask me anything. We've got some great questions that Kip and I fielded and that will be available

01:03:44.740 tomorrow. But until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.

01:03:50.660 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:03:54.960 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - November 21, 2023

BRIAN JOHNSON ｜ Theory, Practice, Mastery

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